Carmel and Yosemite

Changing our plans a bit, we decided to enjoy a couple of what we will call "real vacation" days in the quaint little town of Carmel-by-the-Sea, at the recommendation of my brother and other friends.  We loved it!  It is an adorable little beach town with a gorgeous beach, tons of art galleries and other little shops, and some wonderful restaurants/cafes.

We scored a nice room at the Dolphin Inn last minute, complete with fireplace and heated pool (yes, it was still a bit chilly in the area).

These were our first views of the flawless coastline at Carmel.

That first night, we ate at Christopher's Restaurant, where we enjoyed every bite of a chile relleno filled with risotto, wild mushrooms, and shrimp and indulged in our first steak of the month- a filet mignon with a mushroom and sun-dried tomato sauce.

Me, content after a delicious meal!

The next morning we slept in and headed out on the famous 17-Mile Drive that passes by Pebble Beach, lending us more gorgeous views of the pristine California coastline.

This is called the Lone Cypress and has supposedly stood on this rock, beaten by the winds from the ocean, for over 250 years.

They're hard to pick out, but we found more seals sunning on the rocks...

And this was appropriately named Bird Rock (notice all of the black dots)...

After driving the 17-Mile Drive, we grabbed some lunch and then rode our bikes back down a section of it, appreciating the unobstructed views even more so.

That afternoon, we meandered back down to Carmel beach to try out the water, because you can't be at the beach and not get in the water, right?  Well, as you can tell by the expression on my face in the first pic, the water was a bit chilly... frigid, actually!  So, we settled to just stick our feet in.

We ended our evening with mediterranean cuisine at Dametra Cafe, recommended also by my brother. It was hands down the best dining experience we have ever had!  The host was extremely friendly (especially because he snuck us in at a table even though their reservations were full), the food was perfect (spanakopita, lasagna, a roast chicken wrap and greek salad and baklava for FREE), and on top of all of that, they brought out a cook that sang a beautiful Spanish song and later on, they played a very upbeat song on the guitar and bongos and invited everyone to get up and dance.

If you are ever in Carmel, you MUST go here!  As the sign claims, it is truly a restaurant "like nowhere else!"  (And if you go, let them know that I sent you, because I told them that my brother had recommended the cafe to me and the host sent with us a bottle of wine for him!) 

The following day, we finally began our return trip headed East and drove about five hours to get to Yosemite.

That afternoon we did a couple of short hikes near the South entrance and Wawona, enjoying a beautiful meadow and its surrounding trees and flowers and then checking out some small falls (my favorite!).

We made it an early morning the next day as we headed to the West entrance to the park and to Yosemite Valley.  We decided to hike the Valley Floor Loop trail in order to avoid the crowds on the roads and still see all of the major sites.

Here are Yosemite's Upper and Lower Falls.

Us in front of the Lower Falls.

Kris caught a really cool pic of this bright blue bird in flight.

Along the hike we caught some neat views of the meadows, forests, and surrounding granite rock of the park that most tourists don't get to see...

This is the impressive granite rockface El Capitan from a side view.

A beautiful butterfly along the path.

And a rattlesnake that we thankfully saw in the path before crossing it...

The front face of El Capitan... we spent some time watching as teeny tiny dots (rock climbers) made their way up...

The very unique Bridal Veil Falls.  As you can see, the fall of the water is very easily shaped by the direction of the wind, so it was fun to watch its ever-changing path during our lunch break.

An artistic view of this textured tree bark and the almost neon green moss just beginning to grow on it...

A view of the Yosemite Valley from Tunnel View, the famous view that inspired Ansel Adams.

So, of course, we had to do the black-and-white photo like Ansel.

On our way to our next stop, we almost ran into this gorgeous and brave wolf hanging out right at the edge of the road.

And we ended our day at Glacier Point, where you get an amazing view of the other famed rockface Half Dome and its surroundings.

Today, we continue our venture eastward with a 10-hour trip to Zion National Park.  We are looking forward to a change in scenery with the colored desert sands and canyons of the southern Utah Parks before we make our final push back home to Nashville.

Portland, the Redwoods, and San Fran

Wow... time is flying by!  While in Portland, we realized that we were exactly half-way through our 30-day road trip.  It was a bittersweet realization, for while we are not eager to end our adventures, we are excited about the idea of transitioning back "home" to Nashville.

Here was our first view of the city of Portland... a bit larger than the little hippie town we had in our minds!

We stayed at an amazing B&B the Everett House ($90 a night!) just outside of downtown, and the first night we went to a TripAdvisor recommended restaurant just a few blocks away for some good ole' southern cooking!  It was called the Screen Door (very creative name for the South, we thought), and after we had waited an hour to get a table, we had worked up quite an appetite!  Nevertheless, the barbeque beef brisket, green beans, potato salad, asparagus custard, and triple-layer lemon curd and coconut cake with strawberry-rhubarb ice cream sure filled us up!

We headed downtown the next morning, and throughout the day, we found Portland to live up to the saying that was part of a huge outdoor mural, "Keep Portland Weird."  Good job, Portland... in our eyes, you have succeeded.

Here was a fun musical group we passed as we walked through the Portland Saturday Craft Market (although it was Sunday).  They were called "Bottom of the Barrel," and we were really impressed by the girl playing the handsaw like a violin (on the far right).

We accidentally happened upon this famous donut shop and apparently arrived at a lucky moment, because although we were not about to wait in the line wrapping around the building just to buy a donut, some guy came out with a box full and offered us a free one.  We tried one with an oreo topping... couldn't finish it, but didn't feel so bad about throwing the rest away since we didn't pay for it.

We also couldn't miss the "Portland Pride" parade downtown... let's just say it was very interesting.

We made a stop at the famous Stumptown Coffee Roasters.

And we had to go to this HUGE warehouse of books that is just as popular for locals as it is for tourists... ironically, we spent the majority of our time in the Travel section.

Thanks again to Trip Advisor, we found this down-home-cooking restaurant called "Mother's" to eat at for Father's Day (again, the irony...).

And we finished our afternoon with a FREE visit to the International Rose Test Garden.  It was pretty unbelieveable... we are posting some of our favorite colors here... but they were all beautiful.

My favorite...

Kris's favorite... called "Ketchup and Mustard."

A good poem at the Garden... hope you can read it.

For a small dinner, we enjoyed tapas and a dessert at a this cute cafe called Pix Patisserie run by a French pastry chef.  The dessert below was called Shazaam and was dark chocolate surrounding a thin layer of chocolate cake with caramel mousse on top and with more caramel sauce and almonds in the middle... yes, it was yummy in our tummies!

After leaving Portland, we decided to take the longer route down the famous Highway 101, along the Oregon and California coastlines.  This was one of our first of many gorgeous beach pics.

At a viewpoint called Strawberry Hill, we found this group of sea lions out sunning.

And we saw LOTS more sea stars...

Caught a decent picture of this lighthouse...

And the LONG coastline...

By the time we entered California, it was getting pretty foggy, so we went ahead and made our way to our campsite for the night in Jedediah Smith State Park, among the Redwoods.

The following morning we went on a short hike not far from our campsite to see a famous grove of Redwoods... and we had thought the trees in Olympic were tall!

This actually turned out to be a pretty interesting hike, because what was labeled on the map as a "footbridge" was still covered with river water.  We though it would just be knee-deep... but by the time we got close to the other side, we were already up to our chests in it!

A couple of perspective pics to show the impressive size of these trees...

One of the coolest things we saw were lots of "nurse trees" that once fallen, serve as a bed of nutrients for new trees to take root.

Again, it was pretty foggy first thing in the morning...

We did a short hike to "Hidden Beach," and it was pretty well hidden, because we were the only ones there!

Just thought this was a cool photo as we drove along...

And at approximate 1,500 years old, this one definitely lived up to it's title... "Big Tree."

Our next stop was in the very unique and famous Fern Canyon, where ferns covered all sides up to 50 feet tall!

Got a good up-close pic of this red frog...

And we ended our day with a drive through the famed Avenue of the Giants.  We could not capture the sheer magnitude of the trees and forest around us in photos... we took some video out of the sunroof which probably provides the best perspective, but we couldn't download it here.

That night, we pushed on through to San Francisco, arriving at about 11PM at the fun, old-timey Hotel Mayflower right downtown.

As we walked around the city the next day, we decided to re-name this place "City of Hills."  The steep up- and downhills somewhat took us back to our hikes in the Valley.

We enjoyed a lunch at the Boudin Bakery, famous for its sourdough.

And we enjoyed some time in the Fisherman's wharf area, exploring the different piers and the animals that inhabited them...

We decided last minute to book a ride on this catamaran called the "Sea Cat."  We thoroughly enjoyed our 90-minute sailboat ride around the San Francisco harbor!

Here, we got some good views of the famous prison at Alcatraz...

The Golden Gate Bridge...

And the city itself...

Closer views of the bridge...

And a large container ship coming in from China...

And they even let Kris steer us back to the pier!

That afternoon, we stopped by the crooked Lombard street, before finishing the evening at a great hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant recommended by Kris's sister-in-law, called Trattoria Contadina.

On our way out of San Fran the next morning, we headed to the nearby town of Sausalito for breakfast and stopped to get a few more pics of the Bridge...

This was a memorial to all sailors who had sailed out of the San Francisco Harbor...

And because we felt I was looking especially pregnant this day, we even got a "pregnant pic" along the way...

In Sausalito, we enjoyed a delicious breakfast at Fred's Place, kinda like a local Waffle House... but with much higher quality food (but maybe not any healthier)!

What a beautiful feat of architectural and engineering ingenuity!

We are currently enjoying some rest days in the quaint little beach town of Carmel, but we will soon begin our trek East toward Yosemite and on to southern Utah...